The Garden
by Paradoxicalsquirrel
Summary: The 11th Doctor finds himself in a secluded mountaintop city, Eden, after an accidental trip to Rapture. However, he hasn't gotten as far away from rapture as he thinks he has...
1. Chapter 1

Author Note: Due to the extremely violent nature of bioshock, as well as other flaws, I have decided to NOT make rapture the main setting of this fiction. Instead, I am using its existence to further the main plot of the story. This story takes place between the 11th's first meeting with Amy Pond, and the majority of the episode, "The Eleventh Hour".

The Garden

The door of the TARDIS slowly opened as the 11th Doctor stepped out, looking upon the interior of a derelict, undersea building, littered with picket signs and creaking occasionally, flickering lighting lending itself to the atmosphere. The Doctor slowly walked over to one of the signs and picked it up, reading the words, "Ryan doesn't own us!" quietly to himself before licking it and saying, "1958…" before his eyes widened and he sprinted straight back to the TARDIS, shutting the door quickly before turning to the console in the center of the room. He then started pushing several buttons, and operating several levers as the cylinder in the center of the console started moving up and down, with a noise similar to heaving breathing. Shortly after it started, the interior started rumbling as he endeavored, amongst the shaking to make sure that the TARDIS would never be able to come there again by chance.

"Rapture" He muttered to himself before saying, "Why did it have to be Rapture, there's several doomed cities out there, all nicer than this one. Atlantis, Pompeii… No, already been there". He sighed to himself before relaxing to some degree and saying, "At least, I don't have anyone with me right now. It would be far worse if she had come." As the shaking of the rather broken-down TARDIS stopped, The Doctor walked over to the doorway again and said to himself, "If I find myself aboard the honest Titanic, I will-" and opened the door in mid sentence, rather stunned to find himself in what appeared to be a grey, metallic cargo hold full of metal crates resembling early 1900s designs with a single staircase, one of the few sources of light. He tapped his foot on the floor. Hearing no echo indicative of an air, sea, or space borne craft he walked up the stairway at the far end of the area and found himself in a rather opulently decorated hallway of blue and gold with the occasional porthole-like window on the side. His curiosity piqued, The Doctor walked over to one of them and leaned forward. To his surprise, he saw nothing but mountains, fog, and scattered, towering bases built on the mountains.

"Excuse me, sir." A voice said behind him, causing him to turn around, slightly surprised. He faced an elderly man in a suit, "Something I can do for you?" The Doctor asked. "Yes, Eden's 50th anniversary celebration is this way" the man replied, pointing to The Doctor's left before continuing, "And this area is for the use of Biogenics laboratories, I hardly think you have any business here…" The Doctor nodded as the man walked off, lagging behind for a moment with a quizzical look on his face before following him to a large room with several tables, covered in white cloths and several people, many dressed formally though some few could be seen in average, or even ragged clothes. At the far end of the room lay a stage with speakers affixed to the ends of a bar from which a red curtain hung.

"Good Evening", a voice boomed from the speakers, drawing The Doctor's attention to the stage. "I'd like to welcome you all to Eden's _50__th_ anniversary celebration!" before pausing for a moment, ironically not garnering any praise from those present. "Right then." The voice mused, "In a way, it's somewhat hard to believe that 50 years ago, our founder, Darius Whitman was able to gather the resources and manpower needed to build this great city, standing high above the world, above the civilization, and its stagnation." At the mention of the stagnation of civilization in general, many of the guests started applauding, The Doctor moving through the crowd up to the strangely occupant-less stage. A strange pause occurred while some mumbling could barely be heard through the speakers before the speaker continued, "On this momentous occasion, it is my honor to present to you someone even I didn't think would be here… Darius, WHITMAN!"

The speaker finished with extra emphasis, before out of the curtain walked a man of roughly 40 years, who slowly walked to the front as a hole in the stage opened, a microphone rising out of it. "Greetings", he said to them, "I hope you're enjoying yourselves, a lot of effort went into this, and it would be arrogant of me to say that it was all my own. We must never forget the people as a whole, and their-No, our contributions to society, above all the working class." The crowd murmured approval, "That!" he said with extra emphasis, "Was the downfall of Rome. That!" he said again, with the same presentation, "Was the downfall of once might Egypt." "That! Was the downfall… Of Rapture." He said, The Doctor moving even more quickly towards the stage before stopping some five feet in front of it and saying, "Hang on, Rapture's a legend. And an obscure one at that, why mention it?" Whitman smiled kindly and said, "A legend? A _legend?_ Then how precisely, do you explain… This?" he said, as he held out his hand towards the curtain. As if reading his mind, the curtain rolled back, revealing several pieces of art, some broken down, others in almost pristine condition, arranged in an almost clustering manner, as though they were shrouding a piece in the back that appeared rough and metallic, far from anything but the most abstract and modern pieces of art. "Though I had originally planned to announce this under different circumstances" Whitman said, "I am pleased to announce the opening of the Rapture memorial museum. We must all learn from the past, so that we do not repeat its mistakes." He then turned to the crowd and said, "However, I must warn you, some areas are cordoned off according to age… Rapture was not the friendliest city on earth, as you may well recall from some accounts." He then stepped down amongst the celebrants and picked up a glass of what appeared to be champagne before stepping back up onto the stage and raising it, saying, "Now… To Eden!" and drinking some part of it, before setting it down on the stage and walking away, the crowd clapping as he left.


	2. Chapter 2

The Garden

Chapter 2

As the crowd dispersed from the gathering room, The Doctor rushed towards the hallway across from the one he use to enter, hanging a right before stopping in mid-sprint, having come face-to-face with Darius Whitman, along with several other guests of apparently upper class. "Ah… Excuse us, we must be going." Whitman said with some degree of distractedness before he and his group started moving around The Doctor. However, The Doctor turned and fell into step with the group and said, "Excuse me… I have a question. This is the city's 50th anniversary, correct?" Whitman stopped for a moment and looked at The Doctor in a fairly stern manner before saying, "Mr…" The Doctor cut in with a, "Smith, John Smith." "Right then." Whitman said to himself, "Mr. Smith, I am quite busy and can NOT afford to be bothered with petty questions. If you are truly anxious about a matter, please direct it to my secretary. You can find my office off of Hermes Heights. We have maps all over the city, so I'm sure you won't get lost." The crowd then departed, some of its members occasionally bumping into The Doctor, as though he wasn't there.

"Hermes Heights… Looks like someone did a little too much research." The Doctor said to himself, before thinking, "Though it's strange… If he knew about Rapture's fall, why let his city emulate it in _any_ capacity?" and walking off towards a nearby map. The map showed a rather web-like city, one comprised of several circles with lining inside of the outer circle, representing the outer and inner levels of a given tower. As Whitman had said, a small circle branched off of the second-to-last innermost ring, labeled, "Administration". Making a mental note of its presence, as well as its location, The Doctor's attention turned to the central building in the web, labeled as a hospital in the legend. "Strange…" he thought to himself, "Usually, the central location in a given city is a center of administration, transit, or even commerce… Why a hospital?"

As The Doctor walked through the halls of Eden, he took note of the activities of the guests as well as their dress, noting the strange contrast of their dress and the technology. He then came to a large window and looked out on several spires, each supporting several concentric rings with tubes running between them, staying true, in a sense, to its spider-web like appearance as shown on the map. He whistled appreciatively as he said, "It's almost easy to forget what's down there…" he said to himself, as a voice at his side said, "Yeah… I suppose it's better that way though, why concern yourself with what you can't fix, right?" causing The Doctor to turn suddenly out of surprise to see a woman of twenty some years with shoulder length red hair and brown eyes and say, "Oh, hello! I'm the doctor." And held out his hand to as she took it and said, "Natalie, Natalie Clarke. It's a pleasure to meet you, doctor…" before the doctor took her hand and cut her off saying, "Just the doctor. Now, what do you know about darius whitman? He seems to be doing rather well for his age, don't you think?" Natalie nodded, "I've noticed that too, but whenever reporters ask about it, he always gives us the same answer, 'The best is yet to come'" she said, imitating whitman's voice and mannerisms as she quoted him, "Though I've always found it strange… My sister, she works at the hospital… Asclepius Clinic it's called. You know of it, right? It's in the center of the city. Anyway, she tells me that whitman's been on the patient list once before, though it doesn't have any record of what he was diagnosed with, or the doctor to whom he was assigned, but that's not the strangest part. Whitman almost never leaves his home, except to work. He has a doctor that makes house calls visit him every now and again for checkups, immunizations and the like so he has no real reason to go to the hospital unless he was seriously injured or ill." "That is strange…" the doctor mused, half continuing the conversation, half talking to himself before looking up at Natalie and saying, "Well, Natalie Clarke… Are you interested in finding out the secret of mr. whitman's, 'Illness'?" as he started to walk down the windowed hall, "What do you mean?" Natalie asked, "We're going to take a look at Asclepius Clinic, and find out what exactly he was admitted for… I have a feeling it has something to do with his unusually good health." He said, as Natalie hurried behind him and said, "Why would I want to find out? It's not affecting me." "No, but if it's affecting whitman it affects eden, and if it affects eden it affects you, and if it's something that your sister ran into and sounded like she had even the slightest bit of curiosity, she may very well be in danger."


	3. Chapter 3

The Garden

Chapter 3

The lights were dim in Darius Whitman's room, he found that he preferred working with only a few focused sources of light, a strange change in his preferences that he thought unusual, but at the same time, came very naturally to him. There was a knock at the door as Whitman turned his head towards a small screen beside himself, before getting up and opening the door to a bespectacled man, somewhere in his mid 40s and saying, "Doctor Quinn, how good to see you… There's been something I've been meaning to ask you abou-"before the man interrupted him and said, "Questions will have to wait, as you well know." And turned towards the side, opening a small bag and removing a few instruments, saying, "This is still a fairly unstable process, the potential ramifications of failure are disastrous, you and I both know all too well what happened in Rapture." Before raising a stethoscope towards Whitman's chest and frowning some seconds later, saying, "Mr. Whitman, how much sleep have you been getting… At least eight hours?" "Of course... Of course I have." Whitman replied, almost absentmindedly, "I will admit, however, it's been a bit hard to get to sleep at times. Ever since you gave me that treatment, I have felt stronger, more energetic and less lethargic, even more intelligent! The world seems spread out before me now, the machinery of the earth, laid bare through simple reasoning. I know what I understand can work, I've gone through countless scenarios in my mind, on paper, even in some defunct laboratories scattered throughout the city, and they all confirm what I've come up with! This treatment has done far more for me than I could have possibly asked for… And to think, this was the result of lost science, something that was deemed a failure by all who knew, and were sane enough to understand…" and shook his head, saying, "Oh, if only Ryan knew what he had under his control, and if Fontaine knew what he was peddling to those people…" "-I'm sorry, but if I may cut in yet again, intelligence? This process was meant to sustain you, not enhance you." Quinn said, "And your heart rate is unusually high… If it gets much higher, it wouldn't be safe for your heart to try to maintain that level of blood pressure. One organ can only do so much, the same goes for your veins and arteries." Whitman sighed and said, "I suppose so… It would be rather dangerous to attempt anything beyond this process. We both know what ADAM does to people, in most cases."

After some time, The Doctor and Natalie had arrived at Asclepius Clinic, in the heart of Eden. Passing by the automatic doors which appeared to hold The Doctor's attention for a moment, they arrived at a reception desk. "Can I help you?" the receptionist asked rather bluntly, "Yes" The Doctor replied, "I'm John Smith, and this is Natalie Clarke" he said as he held up a notebook for a moment before putting it away, "We're the new interns?.." "Just a moment." The receptionist said, looking down and typing at something below the main surface of the desk, as The Doctor grabbed Natalie's hand and said, "This way." Before quickly walking off towards one of the entrances with her in tow causing her to say, "What are you doing? We're not interns, and if they find out…" "They won't." The Doctor replied, before holding up the same notebook he had shown to the receptionist and said, "Slightly psychic paper. It shows them whatever they want to see, the receptionist will most likely think we weren't in the system by virtue of a technical error, and put us in anyway." Suddenly, a resident appeared in the hallway causing The Doctor to take a device from his coat and point it at a doorknob in the hall as it buzzed for a moment and the end lit up before a click was heard and he opened the door, pulling himself and Natalie inside. When he had looked around, he realized that they were both in a closet, causing The Doctor to grab at a pair of long, white coats and handed one to Natalie before putting one on himself, prompting a bewildered look from Natalie as he said, "Don't just stand there, put it on." She started to do so, and almost the moment she finished, the door opened revealing the same resident that they had seen in the hallway. "What are you doing?" he asked. The Doctor displayed the psychic paper again and said, "I'm Doctor Smith, and this…" he said, pausing as he palmed the notebook over to Natalie as she took it and held it up, saying, "Dr. Clarke" the resident raised an eyebrow as he said, "Right then… You two must be the new residents assigned to project Fenghuang." "Fenghuang? The Chinese Phoenix?" The Doctor answered, bewildered, "I thought all the names around here were centered on Greco-Roman mythology, not Chinese." "Well, as you know, the Chinese Fenghuang is far more obscure than the Greco-Roman Phoenix. If we called it, 'Project Phoenix' wouldn't everyone be guessing at what it was?" "I suppose you're right." The Doctor said, "After all, there can't be too much access to the results of this project… Lead the way, please." The Resident nodded and started walking back the way he had come. As they continued on their way, Natalie moved in towards The Doctor and said in a hushed tone, "Fenghuang?" The Doctor replied, saying, "The Fenghuang is roughly the Chinese equivalent of the Phoenix of the Greeks and Romans. It was traditionally associated with the royal house, though strangely enough, it was associated with the divine right of the empress, whereas the dragon was associated with the divine right of the emperor…" he said, trailing off as though he were thinking of something. Natalie looked as though she was going to say something, but they stood at a pair of heavily locked doors as the resident punched several keys, holding each one down for a moment before opening the door. As they walked in, they found themselves in a large laboratory with several tubes of glowing blue liquid running underneath a clear floor, being derived from what looked like several tanks of a similar, albeit glowing red liquid which went through several tanks and machines until it was processed and emptied into a large tank in the center of the room. The Doctor stood, stunned by what he saw as Natalie came up to him and said, "What? What's wrong?" The Doctor said in a hushed but intensive tone, "I can't believe I missed this… You know why this place is named Eden, correct?" "It's because it's supposed to be a perfect haven, no interference from corrupt governments, no petty laws, no sense of shame over things that should be public, populated by the innocent." "No." The Doctor replied, "It's because this is where ADAM and EVE meet."


	4. Chapter 4

The Garden

Chapter 4

"Adam and Eve?.." Natalie asked, fairly confused, "I'll admit, that would be a strange coincidence, having a couple with those names in any context, but why here?" "Not Adam and Eve, ADAM and EVE, the substances." The Doctor said, stressing the words, "ADAM" and, "EVE". "Actually, ADAM is essentially like a combination of a virus and stem cells, it not only rewrites the DNA of a cell, it also replaces the cell itself with a, 'blank slate' sort of cell. The problem is, the DNA of those cells decays at an extremely fast rate, so you need more ADAM with fresh doses of DNA to keep yourself from decaying into a… Blob, I suppose. Problem was, the first people to discover it didn't understand what it was and as more ADAM gets into your system, the more the decay speeds up, and the only cure is more ADAM… You get the idea." "But why produce it here?" Natalie said, "I mean, if it really does that much harm, what good would it do?" The Doctor started walking down the ramp that lead into the laboratory's center as Natalie followed, he said to her, "Profit. That was the other downfall of Rapture. Currency transferred, but the prices didn't. There were no laws, so prices were absurdly high. With the only source of new money being immigrants, inflation didn't take place, only swindling. This led to a massive, and I mean, _massive_ class divide, and eventually a civil war; over control of ADAM, resources, and because the ADAM addicted citizens were driven mad by the decay of their own brains. Only question is, where are they getting this? ADAM is absurdly hard to produ-…" The Doctor's eyes widened for a moment before a dark scowl appeared over his face as he produced a device from his pants. "What's that?" "Sonic screwdriver." The Doctor replied, as he pointed it down at the center of the room. It started buzzing before the machinery below started to creak and groan, sparks flying about as he put it away. The resident that led them there looked over at The Doctor and said, "Oi, what was that?" "Looks like we're having trouble with the control circuits… Better fix that, otherwise we'll have catastrophically high pressure on our hands." The Doctor replied. "How do you-? Nevermind, we'll get the techies in here." The resident said before he moved over towards an intercom and held down a button, saying into it, "All personnel please recover your materials and leave laboratory four. We have a problem with the control circuits in the ADAM processing system." Before looking over at The Doctor and Natalie, saying, "That means you two as well, now come on" And motioning with his hand towards the door. They fell in with the rest of the researchers before passing a pair of doors marked as bathrooms. The Doctor entered one, and Natalie, picking up on the cue, entered the other. Some minutes later, The Doctor opened up the bathroom door to see Natalie standing at the opposite wall. "What were you doing in there, anyway?" Natalie said "Looking around." The Doctor replied, cryptically, "Tell me, Natalie Clarke, how many hospitals are there in this city?" Natalie paused for a moment before she replied, "Five, including Asclepius, I think. Why, is that important?" "Very." The Doctor said before walking down the hallway again and saying, "There's one more thing I need to look into, but I need you to stay put, understand?" The Doctor said. Natalie nodded. "Good, I can't risk you getting into any trouble, not because of me" he said. He began to walk down the hall, Natalie following some distance behind in an unassociated manner before they came to a three way path as she broke away from The Doctor, turning at the corner. The Doctor then looked at several doors, before picking one from the row and withdrew is sonic screwdriver and pointed it at the doorknob for a moment, before a click was heard and he opened the door, arriving in a room with a few covered computer screens, servers and what looked like an active monitor as he leaned over it and started typing on the keyboard, bringing up some files before a security screen came up asking for a password. Turning towards the servers, he pointed his sonic screwdriver at it and turned it on, causing them to whirr to life before the security screen disappeared, showing several files, though the one that caught The Doctor's eye the most were files on a plasmid called, 'Regenerate' and a file entitled, 'Harold Saxon'. The Doctor quickly ran out of the room and pointed the sonic screwdriver again at the servers causing them to spark and burst into flame for as he moved out towards the entrance and out, shut the door and ran away from the room, moving over towards a fire alarm lever and pulling it down, causing an alarm to sound throughout the building as he ran out, alongside several panicking doctors and researchers.

As Darius Whitman worked on several papers in his office, he heard a knock at his door. "Come in." he answered rather absentmindedly. As the door opened, Natalie Clarke walked in and said, "Hello… I'd like to ask you some questions. About Rapture?" "Right… Right. Rest assured, our sustenance of Rapture is temporary, until we can orchestrate the construction of more ethical methods of ADAM production than retrieving it from Rapture." Whitman replied, prompting a look of shock from Natalie. "You're… _Sustaining_ Rapture?" Natalie asked. "Of course." Whitman replied, "And now I have a question for you… Who are you, and how exactly did you get information on project fenghuang?" Natalie quickly reached for the psychic paper and held it up, saying, "I'm Dr. Clarke, a resident assigned to project fenghuang." A smug smile cross Whitman's face as he leaned over towards her and said, "Blank pieces of paper, do not credentials make." Natalie stood up and moved towards the door as Whitman sighed and pressed a button on his desk and said, "Excuse me, but I believe some rather important administrative documents have been stolen from my desk… Could the last oh… Five people to have been in my office be questioned on this matter? Thank you." As soon as Natalie left the lobby in front of the office, a stoic man in a suit grabbed her by the arm and said, "Come with me." Causing her to pull away from him and say, "I'm not going anywhere" before looking him straight in the eyes and saying, "Let. Me. Go." "No." the man responded in an equally firm tone, before pulling her away, stumbling and shouting.


End file.
